Saturday, November 05, 2011

Thawra (=Revolution), now Sadr, City

Was an agricultural territory belonging to Al-Attar family (an old Baghdadi family.) There were many swamps there and many illegal houses built from simple materials that don't shelter from coldness in winter nor hotness in summer. Those illegal lodgments were belonging to those who ran away from the feudalism in the south. They prefer to be near Baghdad to work in this big city. That was when Iraq was a kingdom. At the start of the Republican era of Iraq, Abdul-Kareem Kasim had ordered to build houses in that land and to put them into the possession of its inhabitants. "I will put an end to shanties." said Abdul-Kareem Kasim.

The ministry of municipalities, ministered by then (1959) by the first Arab female minister Dr. Nazeeha Al-Dulaimy, was the ministry which planned and execute the plan.

In 1960, the building started. The Army canal was its west boundary. It lies to the east of Baghdad and thus why Baghdadis used to name those people living in it as Shroogies (Easterners). It was belonging administratively to Al-A'athameya, and was divided into many quarters: Seville, The Kurds (majority of Kurds lived there), and Jameela (after Jameela Bou Herd the Algerian female fighter who visited Iraq and asked Abdul-Kareem Karsim who was renting a simple house for his own lodgment by then why he don't have his own lodgment so he took her to this city and told her that he will manage to have his own lodgment when those people can have theirs, and since then that particular place was named Jameela).

The name of this big city was at first, Al-Thaora (=The Revolution). It was named by Abdul-Kareem Kasim himself who was loved to a great degree and if you use your attention you will find that many of the newborns in Iraq between 1958 and 1963 were named Kareem for males and Kareema for females.

When Abdul-Salam Aarif succeeded in his coup d'état against Abdul-Kareem Kasim he changed the city name to Al-Rafidain (the two rivers, referring to Mesopotamia).When Saddam came to the regime the city name was changed to Saddam's city.After 2003 the city started to be named Al-Sadr city.

The city surface area is about 30 km cubic. Its population is approximately 3 million living in 144 cubic meter houses. Some of those houses were divided into two when the family enlarged (e.g. after the marriage of the elder son) to two 72 cubic meter houses. Some of the original 144 cubic meter houses lodge 3 to 4 families.

Dr. Muthaffa As'ad

Opened his private clinic at 1963 and was taking 250 Fils for a patient (A Dinar contains 1000 Fils). Dr. Muthafar specified a day in the week in which he saw patients for free. He was much loved and respected and till now the crossroad where his private clinic was is named Muthafar's Square.

Mreadi Market

Mreadi was born at 1930 in Al-Umara. He was from Al-Fartous family. He volunterred in the Iraqi army and participated in the 1948 war in Palestine. After retiring from the army he started to sell vegetables and fruits (greengrocery) then had a kiosk selling nuts and gasious fluids.

The lovable book contains valuable information about the history of sport and art in the city too. Contains some poems written on the city. It is a book that has no reference to the publication house, with bad quality of paper and pictures, sill it has in its back cover the number of registration of the book in "Documents and Books House" in Baghdad in 2008. Much more important it contains the love to this city which is easily felt with every single line Hasan Abdul-Aba Al-Waheali wrote.